Archive for March 6, 2018

This Friday, the opening fixtures of league play in the Pacific 12 Conference begins in the Bay Area, as Cal hosts Oregon and Stanford hosts Colorado.

It has been prophesied that the Pac-12, which includes the four aforementioned universities along with Arizona State and Southern California, could very well do what its predecessor, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, could not, which is bring big-time coaching and playing talent out to the far west.

All six schools have put tremendous effort and commitment into their programs, especially when it comes to hiring head coaches. Three of them — Lindsay Munday, Ann Elliott, and Katrina Dowd — played at the highly successful Northwestern program. The others prepped in the Delmarva region of the U.S. — Amy Bokker (George Mason), Courtney Connor (Maryland), and Brooke Eubanks (James Madison).

The six of them, I think, will raise the price of poker for lacrosse nationwide, especially as the teams’ collective infrastructure improves with the money being spent on the sport.

Now, especially with worldwide events such as the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup coming to the far West in the next 10 years, it’s easy to contemplate a scenario for the rest of the Pac-12 to come into the league. Here’s my scenario:

2020: Arizona. It is a natural rival for Arizona State
2021: Washington and Washington State. They’ll be a package deal, I think, especially in trying to locate a suitable home
2022: Oregon. Some of that T. Boone Pickens oil money has to go to something other than football
2023: UCLA. If there is a field hockey stadium built on the UCLA campus, it will have an early co-tenant
2024: Utah. Though Utah is one of the fastest-growing areas for girls’ lacrosse in the country, I think the Utes will likely bring up the rear in terms of the number of teams adopting women’s lacrosse